Ther newspaper of record?

The Times on Thursday ran an article entitled "Queues and panic in rush to withdraw money", the article commenced

"At one end of High Street in St John's, the capital of Antigua, thousands of American tourists disembarked from two cruise ships. Many browsed the duty-free shops, others visited the casino and the rest piled into mini-buses that would take them to one of the island's 365 beaches.

At the other end, England cricket fans watched their team take control of the third Test against West Indies in the Recreation Ground.

In between, at the junction of High Street and Thames Street, hundreds of locals queued outside the Bank of Antigua to withdraw their money. "

The Times illustrated the article with this picture of the aforementioned bank...

There is just one problem, that picture is of the bank just outside of the airport complex not the bank in St Johns.

Panic on the streets of St John

Allen Stanford's business issues have had the expected result on the streets of St Johns and it is The Independent that has probably the best "local colour" piece:

"They were dressed in summer clothes. The sun was beating down but the palm trees dimmed its heat. Nothing, however, could disguise the frightened mood of the people.

Outside the Bank of Antigua yesterday, the overwhelming fear was that hell had come to paradise. There were perhaps 150 people queueing outside desperate to get inside.

They had come to check the state of their accounts. Every person there seemed to have every penny they had in the world deposited with the bank.

The Bank of Antigua is owned by Stanford Financial Group and the day before in the US, its chairman, Sir Allen Stanford, had been charged with taking part in an $8bn (£5.6bn) fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission in Texas cannot have known the potential catastrophe its actions were inflicting on Antigua and Barbuda.

Sir Allen first brought his business to these Caribbean islands 26 years ago. He is, next to the government, the biggest employer in the country with some 2,000 workers. Since the population is only 70,000 his departure will have a cataclysmic effect. “Of course, I’m worried. I want to try to see if my money is safe and I want to try to take it out,” said Derek John. His life savings are deposited with the bank and without them his building contracting company in the Antiguan countryside may |be in big trouble."

Most Antiguans are proud, independent and respectable and they do save; they need to. Now they are worried about the safety of their money and many will also be wondering about their job security as well.

Trouble for Antigua

Not the cricket but the NEWS that Allen Stanford the Texan billionaire who plays such a part in the Antiguan economy

"has been charged over a $8bn (£5.6bn) investment fraud, US financial regulators say.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the financier had orchestrated "a fraudulent, multi-billion dollar investment scheme".

The SEC said the fraud was "based on false promises and fabricated historical return data"."

Already the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have suspended negotiations with Sir Allen Stanford over a new sponsorship deal and this will presumably allow the ECB to extricate themselves from the Stanford 20Twenty contract.

However the real impact may well be on the people of Antigua so many of whom relied upon Sir Allen Stanford's businesses for their livelihoods, I believe his companies were the second largest employer on the island. There will be a lot of very worried Antiguans when they hear the news and the bars of St Johns will be awash with speculation as well as rum and the Roti King will be alive with rumour and worry.